Anticipation
by ThisBookBelongsTo
Summary: Jim is taken by surprise when his friend, supposedly lost to the lures of Gol's non-emotion, tricks his way onto the Enterprise. Will they be able to keep their respective feelings in check or will the unexpectedness leave them off guard? Very little plot, just cuteness and K/S (though they are really one and the same!) As if it needs saying, I don't own, etc.


Gentle Reunion

_A/N: Spock went to Gol to free himself of his human emotions, and since he left, Kirk has been beside himself with regret. When he receives a message requesting that he beam up a certain Vulcan in the middle of the night, what will follow?_

The painfully familiar silhouette came into focus slowly as the golden shower produced by molecular reformation began to subside. Standing alone in the transporter room, Captain James T. Kirk fought to keep the saline droplets from gathering beneath his hooded eyelids.

Ten minutes ago, at 23:34 ship's time, he'd received a private communiqué that had awoken him in his quarters. He stood now waiting for Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan to materialise, desperately curious as to what could have been so urgent as to necessitate their meeting alone like this, and at this hour.

The tall, angular form was hooded, so Kirk did not see the face of his visitor as he descended the few steps to stand at the captain's side. He saw only the staunchly straight back, the squared shoulders, and the long, elegant fingers protruding from flared black sleeves...

Kirk succeeded almost completely in his efforts to suppress his involuntary gasp as the memories he had been trying to ignore for too long vied for attention at the back of his skull. Their agitated state was almost tangible, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache as he ruthlessly forced those heart-wrenchingly trusting eyes from his thoughts.

A hand flew to his shoulder as the small sound passed from his parted lips, grasping just a little too tight for comfort. Kirk looked up in surprise and his gaze was met by achingly familiar chocolate-browns. The captain's hand shook as he reached out for the edge of the silk hood, hooking it with one finger and drawing the shadows away from the face of his companion.

"Sp-" he managed to whisper, the words choked up in his suddenly parched throat. "Spock..."

The lean figure looked down at him, his body motionless save for the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed. But those eyes, those human eyes, shone with so much emotion that it was hard to believe they belonged to the same man who had left him so long ago to purge himself of the shameful feelings he harboured. Like his friendship for the captain of the Enterprise...

"Jim," he breathed in response, a statement and a question at once. In that single word, the half-Vulcan managed to convey so much, but it was nothing that Kirk had not already known, if only they had both been ready to see it before. Now, however, things seemed... different, somehow.

A tremulous sob ran through Kirk's frame, wracking his body with the agony and relief of seeing his dearest friend after so long; too long. The captain desperately wanted to reach out, to touch the hand that rested still on his heaving shoulder, but he was also terrified of doing something wrong. What if he moved too quickly, and startled Spock away?

Kirk never had worked out why his friend had really left for Gol, though his heart told him that it was his own fault. It was a guilt that had burdened him since Spock's departure, and the thought of being the one to finally drive out the humanity he had nurtured in the half-Vulcan had almost been too much to bear on more than one occasion.

"You were... successful, in your endeavour?" he asked tentatively instead, needing to know how much of his friend had returned to the ship with his body.

"I was."

Two words that turned the captain's heart to lead and set it plummeting down, down through the soles of his feet and out of the Enterprise, to be consumed by the suddenly bleak emptiness of the icy void beyond her protective walls.

"Oh," he mumbled, suddenly left hollow inside. What was he to say to such soul-crushing news? "I am pleased for you, commander." The only thing a true friend could say.

Spock drew his eyebrows together infinitesimally at Kirk's reversion to his formal title, then smoothed as understanding dawned. "No, Jim," he hastened to explain, "I have failed to achieve Kolinhar. However," he added, more gently, "I have found a compromise which yields far more satisfying results." Relief bubbled in the captain's chest, and an emotion he had long ago labelled and stowed safely away from where it could influence him. That was before Spock left, however, and he gave in to his indulgences.

"Then, you can still... feel?" he queried, making sure he understood what Spock was saying. A brief nod drew a dazzling smile to his face as he clapped a hand firmly to the half-Vulcan's arm in a gesture of friendship. Spock could not withhold the answering upward twitch of his own lips, and nor did he detect within himself even the remotest desire to do so. This was Jim, after so long, really here and smiling at him, not furious at his betrayal or bitter at his abandonment...

Kirk felt slightly trembling fingers interlace with the hand still resting by his side. Careful not to start and deter his friend, the captain instead closed his eyes and just let the sensation of Spock wash over him. He had thought it unlikely that they would ever meet again, and virtually impossible that his friend would still be so much himself when they did so. Yet, here he was; it was, truly, turning out to be a remarkable night.

Roused from his satisfied introspection by an unfamiliar but not entirely unpleasant tingling in his right hand fingertips, Kirk looked down to see Spock's long digits tenderly running up and down his own middle and index fingers, caressing his soft hand almost reverently. Moving his gaze to the half-Vulcan's face, a thousand butterflies took flight in the pit of the captain's stomach at the vision of subdued ecstasy on his uninhibited features.

Spock's eyes were closed, his black lashes fluttering as erratically as his breath as he indulged in a pleasure he had for years denied himself. It was improprietous and presumptuous of him, but the call for Jim was grown too strong to resist any longer.

A sudden warm breath on his lips was the only warning he had, lost in the sensation of the Vulcan kiss as he was, before Kirk's mouth alighted nervously upon his own in a tender human equivalent. Opening his eyes, Spock's gaze fused with Jim's own sapphire orbs in a mire of passion and longing that had in both been gradually building over the years of their close friendship.

Breaking away, Kirk panted slightly as he whispered five words Spock had thought only to hear in his dreams.

"I missed you, my t'hy'la."

To Spock's mind, it was the most beautiful of all the words produced by his native tongue, and made all the more so by the fact that it was Jim who spoke it, his rose petal lips pouting slightly - in a way the half-Vulcan found almost irresistible - as he formed the unfamiliar syllables.

The next words reverberated through Kirk's thoughts, bursting from Spock's own mind in an entropic rainbow of sheer desire.

'Never and always parted,' echoed the desperate promise, 'Never again will I make such a mistake. My place always has been and always will be by your side.'

A mental headshake interrupted the torrent of powerful emotions, as Jim interjected, 'Your place is in my arms, Spock, and I swear, I'm never letting go of you ever again.'


End file.
